A Faulkner Season

Afternoon passed on an autumn day, but to the young boy, Will, there had been no sense of time. The grey dock on which he sat was an island of isolation as the rest of the world circumvented his existence. A scepter in his hand, the bamboo fishing pole aided in his rule of the pond. The free fingers from the other dismantled his seat piece by piece, casting the grey fragments to the cerulean floor below. Dangled legs led a waltz through the water, breaking the mirror and distorting the crystalline image of the world above. Rapids tore against salmon flesh releasing the grime of its understood contract with the boy. Only the participants under his nails dared to remain.

Though autumn had come in force to assault his adventures and freedom, the hydration was a refreshment from itself, flooding the mind with memories of light, laughter, and love. Orchestras of sounds echoed in the expanse. Overtures of birds crescendo as the symphonies of leaves fell, their winded conductor giving a rest for recuperation. All the while Ronnie's simple, whistled melody carried above them all.

A splash broke through the tranquil veil, leaving Will in a subtle shock. A striped bass, the zebra of fresh water, leapt after a water-bug daring to stand on the sheer surface. Will gave a mind to transferring his placement but resolved against it. Summer days lent to the far bank. The ashen oaks shielded those below from a blistering sun, casting a net of shadow over an extensive swath. Yet, the emerald armor had faded, throwing aside the bold Castleton for deep crimsons and golds. Each blast the wind delivered pitched a conglomeration of foliage to the void. Leaves fell in a myriad pirouette to the ballroom floor below, floating on the water in an arbitrary direction. Ships sailing on the sea with neither captain nor rudder.

Will's red plaid shirt tore open at an uninvited gust. Crisp air surged among his limbs and through a tangle of dark hair, searching with unseen hands. It carried the tale of the leaves and dirt to his nose, stories of times passed with promises of tomorrow.

Will checked his older brother Ronnie who struggled with his own blue-buttoned shirt. The fabric hung heavy off the thin frame as a worn tapestry on tired battlements. Ronnie's gaze faced west, unyielding eyes of stone and marble. West was the road more travelled and worn, tired from feet and journeys, dry hafts of corn spearing from the dirt, and home. Will shuttered at the concept of home.

The pole popped against Will's grip. Ecstatic eyes hunted for the yellow cork missing beneath the dark reflection. Instinct took over and Will drew the line back with impetus force. The tension on the bamboo soared to breaking heights. It climbed. It snapped. Will fell against the dock. Blue skies filled the emptiness of his eyes with a sensitive void of their own. The plastic cork bounded on the dock, a silver paperclip further down the line.

Will regained his posture, but not the composure. Heat rose to the lobes of his ears and molars ground behind sealed lips. Trembling fists bashed the traitorous pole against the cohesive mirror. Bamboo bent beneath unrelenting force, the line and hook cracking through the air. Distant thunder rumbled over the western horizon, and Will gave the fishing apparatus a respite from the lashing.

The dock sighed beneath heavy feet. Ronnie paused at Will's side, his toes handing precariously over the edge of the pier, a subtle and wordless introduction. Water ran in rivers through forest of hair off the shins and onto the surface below. A dark artisan stain spread from the epicenter under Ronnie's feet. He coughed and took a seat at Will's right. Will did not know if Ronnie had acknowledged him. Will did not worry or wonder on the matter.

Ronnie set a coffee can betwixt them; red Folger's paint peeled off the brittle tin. Worms writhed in moist dirt gathered from the roots of the pecan tree behind the house. The annelids had no understanding of their fate, their past, or future. They merely existed.

Chattering leaves on limbs and lapping waves fractured the quiet that hung over the pond in a blanket of malcontent. Yet Will's eyes and mind were beyond the fishing hole, gazing east. Beyond the line of trees, a barbed fence cut as sable night across golden sunlit fields. Bushels of wheat created a sea of yellow, stretching west toward the setting sun, a forlorn and final goodbye. Will's imagination felt the grain give way under running feet, chasing the furthest hills and running into the valleys beyond, beneath the building cumulonimbus. Will wondered whether the lands were full of honey or snakes. He would have thought either to be preferable to his current state.

Will looked back at goldenrod shafts pouring over the tops of the pines. Splashes of lavender and rosemary brushed the western half of the sky, the creation of an artist of divinity. Will felt drawn to the majesty, but west was a hopeless path. The surety it gave was not a gift to be desired, so much as a scorned curse.

Ronnie shattered the unwavering silence. "You know," he began, "you ain't gonna catch much without a worm on the line." The calmness in his voice owned a subconscious tranquility, each word a soothing whisper in Will's mind.

Ronnie rebaited Will's hook and returned it to the water to join his own in the patient hunt. "Bet you'll have better luck with that one," Ron said. "There's still light out."

Will gave the brother an undetected thought of appreciation, letting the pause settle in while he pondered his next words. Yet, in time, Will chimed in with a minor question to press the momentum onward. "Ronnie, whatcha think is on the other side of them hills?"

Ron glanced east. "I couldn't tell ya."

"Reckon ma knows?"

Ronnie halted and the world around the older brother froze. At sixteen Ronnie was twice Will's age, knew twice as much, but at times spoke less than half the words, especially the half he should say.

"Ronnie?" Will pressed.

Ronnie popped back. "I suppose she'd know better than any of us. She ain't come back from that way yet. If she ain't figured it out by now, then I ain't Ronnie and you ain't Will."

Will's head hurt. "But...I am Will, and...you're Ronnie...ain't ya?"

Ronnie laughed. "That's what I'm saying Will. If anybody knows, it'd be her."

"You think we ought to go over there?"

Ron looked down at with a content half-smile. "We're gonna make it over there, but I don't think it's gonna be today."

Thunder rumbled in the clouds overhead with lightning casting silhouetted shadows through the thick haze. Ronnie looked at the sky with furrowed eyes. "It's about time for us to head out."

The boys gathered their things and strode down the dock as sheets of rain poured in, beating at Will with the fury of a thousand frozen arrows. A shotgun discharge tore the scene asunder. Then another, halting them in their tracks, waiting and listening. The rain ceased and thunder grew faint and distant toward the west. Gunpowder filled Will's nostrils, an effluvium if there ever was one. Dogs bayed, but the sound faded as the hounds ran toward the setting sun away from the house. Ronnie dropped his pole and the can, letting them crash onto the dock below. Will did the same.

Ronnie continued and Will stayed close behind. At the cross roads the older sibling turned right, down the Robert Frost road, rather than going straight on toward home.

"Ronnie," Will began, "where are we goin'?"

"To see what's on the other side of your hills."

"But I thought you said we weren't goin' over there today?"

"I did," Ronnie said. He kept up a brisk pace, almost a jog. "But it ain't today no more, look."

Weaving through sagging pines, Will took time to glance east. Dawning sunlight besieged and broke down the stratus portcullis and poured out into the courtyard, flooding the landscape in a tide of gold and warmth. Tendrils of fire revived Will's cold toes as the light fell on him. The boughs of the oak trees bore their immaculate emerald plates as the soldier pines heralded the coming of dawn. A new season and a new day had come.

The wheat gave way before them as they pressed on east, providing a carpet for their bare feet. At the fence Will looked back at the fishing hole. It seemed small then, but Will figured that it had always been that way. Their father sat in a little boat out in the middle of the pond with two cane fishing poles. Will never so much as gave a silent goodbye. Passing over the fence, the boys went up and over the furthest hill, fading away into the wheat fields beyond.